Wolf reacts to being released

On the day Randy Wolf turned 36 years old, the Brewers released the veteran left-hander. Wolf addressed the media on Wednesday and said he had no hard feelings about what happened.

“I’ve known about it,” Wolf said. “I think the way the organization has treated me through this has been outstanding. They just wanted to give me a heads up. I think how much respect they showed me through this process was pretty amazing. I just wanted to thank them for everything. It’s really unfortunate that this year was the way it was, and there’s nobody more disappointed about it than I am.”

Wolf often described this season as the most frustrating of his career, as he went 3-10 with a 5.69 ERA despite feeling no different than previous years.

“I was talking to [general manger Doug Melvin] this morning and he said, ‘You know, sometimes this game just doesn’t make sense,’” Wolf said. “You see guys that have a good year one year, the next year they have a really bad year and then the next year they have a really good year. Obviously things were brutal this year. It’s been really tough because I have felt good, and I haven’t looked up and seen a decline. If I was throwing 84-85 mph and all of a sudden felt like I had no clue out there, I’d have a good idea of what was going on. But it’s something that I just need to get better somehow, figure it out. Obviously I’m leaving too many balls over the middle of the plate. If I do a better job of not doing that, I think I’ll be OK.”

Melvin said releasing Wolf now hopefully means he can be picked up by a team in need of a starting pitcher.

“I’m going in with an open mind,” Wolf said. “It’s a really tough pill to swallow. Luckily, I’ve always been humble in this game, and I realize what this game is like, so it’s disappointing, but I’m not going to be angry about it. I have to go about my business and also appreciate how the Brewers went about this. They basically told me that coming this September, they want to take a look at some young guys. They don’t get a true feel what guys are like, especially during spring training, so they want to use these last six weeks as kind of a measure of where they want to go with their starting pitching. The fact they wanted to give me time and hopefully catch on somewhere else before Sept. 1 and see what happens there, as opposed to waiting until September and putting me in the bullpen and doing it that way.”

Wolf had nothing but positive things to say about his time in Milwaukee, and he would recommend the Brewers to any free agent starting pitchers.

“The experience I had here was extremely positive,” Wolf said. “It’s a great organization with a great owner — a great person — a GM that treated me great, a manager that treated me great, pitching coaches that treated me great. So leaving here, there’s no bad feelings at all, and I wish everybody the best.

“Every pitcher is different and what they want to do is totally different. I think the one thing about [Brewers owner Mark Attanasio] is that he wants to win. I know this year was a tough year for him because it’s really hard for him to kind of throw in the towel in some ways. He always wants to go for it, and I really appreciate that about an owner. When you play in the smallest media market in the country, to put together good teams and to really go for it every year, it says a lot about an owner. For me this is such a great place to play, the way everybody treats me, especially having a guy like [pitching coach Rick Kranitz] here. He’s an awesome pitching coach, a great guy, and I think any pitcher would love to have that guy work with him.”

From here, Wolf will go home to Los Angeles to work out and hope another opportunity comes along. Able to keep his sense of humor, Wolf also wasn’t upset about getting released on his birthday.

“To me, my birthday’s just been another day,” he said. “Other than August 23 when I turned 21. I didn’t feel very good the next day. I think that time was more of a physical punishment, this one’s more of an emotional punishment.

“It’s pretty bad. But you know, the way I look at it is, that day one of age 36 starts off on a bad note. It can only go up from here.”

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